


Spiraling Down

by temporalDecay



Series: a distrait life of mistakes [9]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Complicated Relationships, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Inappropriate Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:39:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Russel Zephyr is dead, Eridan Ampora can’t deal, Agness Syzygy gets a promotion of sorts, the Helmsman is inscrutable, the other helmsman is bewildered, and Karkat Vantas has no fucking clue what’s going on as he learns to mourn a man he never knew, by proxy.</p>
<p>No SGRUB AU, post successful coup, a tragicomedy in five acts featuring Russel “Dead as Doornails” Zephyr, Eridan “Am I Really Too Young For A Midlife Crisis?” Ampora, Agness “I Have A Pet Slime Monster, Your Argument Is Invalid” Syzygy, Ximena “Do I Even Go Here?” Freydn, a surly as all fuck Psiioniic, and Karkat “What Am I Even Doing” Vantas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiraling Down

**Author's Note:**

> ...everyone knew it was going to happen, anyway.

Eridan’s descent into madness is subtle, subdued and nearly inconsequential; everything you never thought it’d be, and thus everything you aren’t prepared to handle. 

It goes something like this. 

  


* * *

  


de·ni·al, **noun** _\dɪˈnaɪəl\_ An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings. 

  


* * *

  


You give it three full shifts before you start thinking Eridan is purposely avoiding you. By the seventh you’re sure of it, and by the twelfth, you gather enough emotional momentum to make your way into his respiteblock and get a conversation going. You’re not sure what you did – _he_ sure as hell hasn’t done anything, as far as you know – but you want to make amends immediately. You miss sharing meals and gossip and cuddling in your block while you watch the next episode of the latest melodrama the entertainment division has come up with. It’s not like you can’t be apart from Eridan or that you’re needy or something dumb like that. Whenever the _Leviathan_ and the _Morrigan_ are in proximity, he scurries away to torment Equius for a few weeks and you handle his absence without a problem. What you’re not used to is being in the same ship and not seeing him at all, because no matter how busy you both are, or how big the ship is, you’ve always found a way to see each other and steal away a few moments for yourselves. You don’t like fighting with your matesprit, it’s all. 

It takes you nearly all the walk to his block to realize you’ve never actually _fought_ your matesprit. 

You used to bicker a lot, and exchanged less than pleasant words, before, but he wasn’t your matesprit then. The more you think about it, the more bizarre it seems, but you can’t really remember Eridan ever being angry at you or not folding back and giving in to whatever you want. Because you’re neurotic and antsy and quickly realizing you have no idea how to handle the idea that Eridan might be _mad_ at you, you quickly begin formulating a long list of terrible things you must have done. Perhaps it wasn’t a specific single thing, but rather the same realization you just had. Maybe Eridan has finally grown tired of always letting you have your way, and if so, you might have to start groveling. Because in the wake of that same realization is the certainty that you don’t want a life without your matesprit. 

By the time you actually reach his door, you’re a wreck of nerves, guilt and a heavy dose of worry. 

“Oh,” the troll that opens the door when you knock – you never really knock, when coming to visit Eridan, but that’s just another tiny thing you’ve taken for granted that maybe you shouldn’t have – says a little flatly, staring at you through rapidly blinking eyes. “Oh, sir. Uh. Sir. This isn’t.” She looks over her shoulder nervously and then steps outside into the corridor with you, closing the door behind her and thus preventing you from seeing whatever’s going on inside. “This is… really not a good time, sir. I mean, uh, it is if it’s about work, I suppose, except Admin Munire is handling Head Admin duties. Right now. Sir. Unofficially. Kinda. I guess. But I suppose it’s not work, from you. Is it.” 

The way the tealblood fumbles with her words, trying to cram ‘sir’ into every sentence seems almost refreshingly mundane, and a good reminder that you’re still not allowed to cave in under personal concerns, because you’re the High Chancellor of Alternia and Its Fleet, even if you still feel like Karkat oh-god-watch-me-fuck-shit-up-on-an-epic-scale-why-am-i-still-alive Vantas underneath it all. 

She looks familiar, though, in a way your pan is itching to place, but your nerves are suddenly too jarred to really bother. 

“Why?” You ask, short and sharp and probably a lot scarier than you intended. 

She thins her lips, folding her arms and slouching forward somewhat defensively, though all her flustered respect seems to deflate instantly. 

“Russel’s dead,” she says, voice soft and dry and flat. 

You’re missing something. You _know_ you’re missing something. If you were less nervous and had had more sleep last shift, you might have been able to join the dots quicker. As it is, you find your dumb maw opening before you can help yourself. 

“Who?” And then, as the tealblood’s glare turns glacial, the fabled spark happens and the dots become lines that paint a really fucking ugly picture. “ _Oh_ , oh _fuck_ , Zephyr. Admin Zephyr is dead.” 

“Is punching you still considered treason punishable by death? Because I just might punch you right now,” the tealblood, which you realize, with your brand new line-painted-picture, must be Agness Syzygy, says in a dry, crisp tone that makes you wince like a chastised grub. 

“I deserve it,” you mutter, before you can help yourself, and then flinch a bit when she raises her hand, but all she does is pinch the bridge of her nose. 

“I’m going to stop calling you Sir, in light of the fact you’re being really fucking dumb, so how about we go have a walk, and I fill you in on all those wondrous things you have missed, by virtue of being the High Chancellor of Alternia and All Its Bloody Fleet.” 

“Yeah,” you croak, feeling miserable and then feeling worse by feeling selfish for being miserable when it’s clearly you who hasn’t gone through a devastating loss. “I think that’d be great.” 

Your first three questions are easily answered without much fuss. Syzygy is staying at the _Leviathan_ after taking an extended leave from her post due to personal reasons unrelated to the personal reasons currently tormenting your matesprit. (You wisely decide against asking what those personal reasons might be, given that you’ve never actually talked to the woman before, and for all you outrank her beyond words, she still somehow makes you feel like a very stupid kid about to receive a scolding by his lusus.) Zephyr died sometime after you last saw Eridan, which apparently threw your matesprit into a very controlled spiral of grief and stupidity that had his entire crew scrambling about to cover his ass while he sat down and grieved. Because of said spiral of stupidity and grief, Eridan quite possibly forgot to tell you about any of this was happening at all. 

You think Syzygy is judging you for not finding out anyway, and you’re inclined to join her in that judgment, because you feel spectacularly stupid about just now. 

You’ve never really liked Eridan’s friends. 

Part of it has always been sheer incomprehension of how their dynamic worked and how they skirt the line of quadrants without ever falling into one. Most of it, you’re willing to admit, much to your own shame, is due to jealousy. You’ve always been resentful of the fact that a pair of midbloods managed in four sweeps what you couldn’t do in twelve. No matter how much you love Eridan, you can’t get into his head as easily as Syzygy and Zephyr do. No matter how much you try, you’ve never been on even footing with Eridan. There’s always rank and the past and implications hanging between you and making you feel like you’ll never be able to fully bridge the gap. 

You never really liked the two trolls that Eridan seemed to hold in the highest esteem, because deep down you’re still Karkat fucking waste of space Vantas, and you hated the way they made you feel lacking somehow. You listen to the stories and the comments that Eridan shares, just like he listens to your own stories, because they’re part of Eridan’s life and even if you don’t like them and you can’t understand them, you want to be the mature adult and respect them. 

But you never really asked about them, or what they did or who they really were. You’re happy letting them exist in their own corners of the galaxy, away from your awareness, because it’s the selfish way to avoid having to look too closely at yourself and all those things that are lacking and you’re only just noticing. It was easier that way. 

It also means you didn’t hear about Zephyr until now. It means you had no idea Syzygy was in your ship in the first place. It means you purposely kept yourself separate from an entire chunk of Eridan’s life, because you were too damn immature to do right by him. 

“I’m a really shitty matesprit,” you say, after a long moment, staring at your tea forlornly. 

“Been telling Princess that for sweeps,” Syzygy retorts without skipping a beat, shrugging. 

She’s not that intimidating, objectively speaking. She doesn’t have the highblood arrogance of someone higher on the hemospectrum. She doesn’t have the rank of people too outside of the norm to completely bypass tradition and history. She’s just a midblood Admin from a space station in a sector you can’t even name. She shouldn’t _matter_. 

But she does, because she matters to Eridan, and Eridan matters the world to you. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, without any real conscious thought, but when you realize what you’ve said, it’s too late to take it back. 

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Syzygy snorts, half of her mouth twisted into an annoyed line. “But it’s a start, I suppose. Give me half a shift and I’ll nudge him into having dinner with you.” 

  


* * *

  


“I’m okay,” is the first thing out of Eridan’s mouth, when he enters the block. “Really,” he adds, after a moment, with the air of someone who’s clearly not expecting to be believed. 

You squint at him a little, clearly not believing him. He looks tired and worn around the edges and there’s a tint of exasperation tugging at his lips. He’s not wearing his uniform, either, considering he’s been placed on leave by a combination of mutiny from his lower ranks, Syzygy pulling out loopholes out of thin air and your signature on some very damning papers. He looks thin and tall and very unthreatening, without his uniform. Over the sweeps, you’ve learned to see the crisp black lines as a replacement for the cape and the scarf of his youth. Despite it all, there’s a certain arrogance to Eridan that might as well be coded in his genes. He’s proud of his achievements, however inconsequential they might be in the large scale of things, but he’s always been someone focused on the material signs of such accomplishments. He likes the signs and regalia and all those tiny details that set people apart at a glance. He fusses about your clothes sometimes, when you let him, and he certainly fusses about his own, for all he ruins them all the time, pulling off ridiculous stunts in the bowels of your ship. He likes the hierarchies and the chains of command, and he likes knowing he has a place in the world. 

Wearing a pair of faded jeans and a loose long sleeve shirt with his sign on it, he doesn’t look remotely okay. Those are juvenile clothes, ghosts from times neither of you should dwell on anymore. He looks out of place and you can’t even imagine how he must _feel_ , because there’s no frame of reference for this kind of thing, and though you struggle to try and understand it, there’s a gap you can’t quite bridge, intellectually. 

“You look like shit,” you say, after the moment has stretched into awkwardness. 

“All these sweeps, I’ve been telling you I’m _hot_ shit, Kar,” he deadpans, a bit sharper than usual, a bit louder. He slinks to his place across the table and slumps down with a loud sigh. “I’m bored and cranky and people keep acting like I’m going to go on a murderous rampage. It’s a lil’ aggravating.” 

You consider the words, the teasing note trying to hook you along his words. You shake your head. 

“Your best friend died,” you say instead, slow and measured, as if testing the waters. You’re not afraid of Eridan, deep down. You’ve never been afraid of Eridan. You’re always afraid for him, instead. “You must be upset.” 

“So I cried a little, when Sol dropped the bombshell,” he snarls back, bristling, “who wouldn’t? He’s dead of old age like we all knew he would, and he was happy so it’s okay. What am I supposed to do?” 

“I don’t know,” you say, which is the truth, because Syzygy made this sound like a national emergency and yet you want so desperately to believe Eridan it scares you. “Mourn, I guess.” 

“I could mourn and do my goddamn job,” Eridan mutters snidely, poking at his food with a dejected air. “Or mourn and fuck. God, we haven’t fucked in forever, Kar, it’s like being kidnapped except you love your kidnappers more than life itself so you can’t really run away.” 

“Your whining isn’t sexy,” you smirk, even though it’s a lie, because there are things Eridan has whined for, with you, that you admit are very, very sexy. But you’re getting off-track and _Syzygy told you about this_ , and you can’t let that tealblooded menace outdo you now. “So cuddling it is, I guess.” 

“I can work with cuddling,” Eridan replies, grinning unrepentantly. 

Cuddling ends up in snoring and Eridan abruptly passed out face-first in your lap. Which is a first, itself. You’re not sure how to handle it, so, much to your chagrin, you ask Sollux to get you Syzygy’s handle and prepare to write what feels like your very first terms of surrender. 

Then Eridan drools a spot all over your groin and you decide to cut the chase and start panicking like a pro. 

Syzygy has the nerve not to mention it. 

  


* * *

  


an·ger, **noun** _\ˈaŋgər\_ A strong feeling of being upset or annoyed because of something wrong or bad; the feeling that makes someone want to hurt other people. 

  


* * *

  


The _Leviathan_ , in its capacity as a diplomatic vessel, does not see combat often. Though there are countless warships stationed in its hangar and a good deal of troops inhabiting its bowels, the main focus of the ship is carrying you about while you do your business, and your business tends to be a lot less blood thirsty than, say, Vriska’s. Or Equius’. You do a lot of talking and bullying and try to keep the fleet from collapsing under its own weight, but you try not to use force at all, if you can. Consequently, beyond a handful of war veterans that serve you with their experience, like Zebeck and her crew, most of the trolls aboard the Leviathan have no real combat experience. The admin crew in particular seems rather ill-suited for battling anything more daunting than a requisition form. 

Admin Syzygy is thoroughly proving that point in a rather spectacular fashion. 

You never really thought needles could be deadly, but you’re quickly revising your opinion as the tealblood rolls around and leaves trolls in heaps all over the mats on the floor, paralyzed by the thin, sturdy needles stuck all over their bodies in what you think might be strategic points. The way she moves is practiced, with the ease of routine, and it makes you wonder if perhaps station admins see a lot more combat than their ship counterparts. She’s light on her feet, keeping her distance and hurling her deadly projectiles with striking precision. With your reluctant blessing, the tealblood has been holding the reigns of your ship for the past three days, while Eridan comes to grips with his emotions and finds a balanced center to deal with everything. 

Your matesprit is a wreck, and while the thought scares you a great deal, you’re not really sure how to fix it. After having a stilted, awkward dinner with him that ended up in a desperate hug, you’ve decided to defer to the one troll that seems to know how to handle things and hope for the best. _He’s never really lost someone who truly mattered to him_ , Syzygy said, after you gathered enough aplomb and freed yourself from your responsibilities enough to hunt her down and ask for advice, _he just needs time to sort things out without doing something stupid._ What scares you the most is the idea of Eridan throwing everything away in a tantrum. Then you feel burdened by guilt and a sharp reminder of conversations with Gamzee about precisely this topic, because Eridan is hardly a child and you don’t want to treat him as one. But still. You can’t do anything to make it better except stand at the wings and help when he asks you to – and he hasn’t, he asked _her_ , so the best you can do is help her and hope that somehow helps _him_ in turn – and drown in worry because you don’t want to think about Eridan fucking things up again and getting undue attention because of it. You don’t want to go through sweeps of arguing with everyone that he’s better than they think, just because he was dumb and emotional and unstable when he was _six_. You want that chain to snap and the weight to stop dragging him down in your mind, whenever he does something that isn’t part of the ‘norm’. 

As Syzygy brings down another tealblood’s massive girth with three well placed needles, you’re assaulted by the thought that it’s been nearly three decades since you’ve actually fought someone in close quarters. No one ever gets close enough, and the older you get, the more work finds its way to your plate. You used to take time in your routine to spar and keep yourself sharp, but it’s been ages since you’ve held the sickles in your hands and there’s probably rust in them by now. There’s just so much more important things to worry about, than your stupid half-hearted stances. 

You make a very stupid decision and walk down the stairs from the observation deck to the large training area. 

By the time you reach the edge of the mat, and you’ve taken off your coat, the entire block is blanketed by surprised, terrified silence and you’re certain you’re about to make an absolute idiot of yourself in public in a way that everyone will yell at you for later. 

“Admin Syzygy,” you say, slow and measured, tilting your head to the side cautiously. “Do you mind?” 

Half the trolls present are staring at the sickles in your hands and the other half is wondering if you’ve ever been seen in public without your coat. 

“Chancellor, sir,” she bows politely, like she should. Then tilts her head to the side, birdlike. “I mind as far as I’m pretty sure it’s treason if I kick your ass.” There’s a significant pause that tastes like a joke and makes you grin somewhat, despite your best intentions. “Sir.” 

“Not if you earn it,” you say, and then leap forward at her, sickles gleaming in the bright lights. 

She rolls out of the way, trying to put distance between you, but you press on, sloppy as all fuck but determined to get a strike. The irrational, childish part of your mind that’s always been jealous of her wants to hurt her. The rest of you is offended because she’s made you realize you _could_ like her, in two conversations. It’s not her fault that you don’t like her, and you’re keenly aware of the fact. It’s not her fault and she doesn’t really seem to hold any scorn for you, beyond the distance she keeps, due to rank. You hate your fucking rank, because the more you’ve thought about it, the more you’ve realized it’s the center of all your problems right now. If you didn’t have the rank you do, Eridan wouldn’t be under constant scrutiny or accused of trying to take advantage of you. It’s been lifetimes since you dreamed of being a threshecutioner, just another roughed up soldier serving the empire with your body, but you dearly, keenly want that dream back, about now. To be someone no one gives a damn about and can laugh and reach out to people without making a fucking statement with every goddamn breath you take. 

Syzygy sticks a needle in your shoulder that feels like a strike of lightning and makes the entire side of your body go numb. There’s a sizable crowd gathering all around you, and you can’t give a damn about all the work it’ll be to keep it under wraps and clean up the political mess, because you’re angry at something that can’t be hurt or defeated by any means you possess and attacking the tealblood ferally is the only thing you have left. 

When you manage to trip her, despite the fact there’s now two other needles embedded in your leg, you feel like you’ve won the lottery. 

Then you nick her arm with the tip of a sickle, following the motion almost naturally, and you hear her curse far more loudly than it seems logical, considering the extent of the wound. 

Then the world explodes into green goo. 

“ _Down_ , boy,” Syzygy snaps with the sort of sharp, generally authoritative voice that’d make anyone assume she was talking to them before realizing otherwise. 

The boy in question is the mass of green slime you’re currently being swallowed by, which then shudders and shifts, almost like a flinch, and then so very reluctantly lets you go. It melts into a puddle at your feet, then slithers to where she is, reforming into a vaguely troll-shaped monstrosity. Absently, you realize your sickles are gone, nowhere to be seen. 

Syzygy winces, standing up as nonchalantly as she can. 

“You can freak out and yell now,” she says, unhelpfully, as you continue to process the situation. “But I’m pretty sure I just kicked your ass on a technicality.” 

Trolls scramble out of the block at remarkable speeds, clearly not very keen on sticking around and watching the aftermath of you being swallowed by a lime green goo monstrosity. 

“I’m brewing a fantastic rant,” you say, once the only sound in the block is your breathing, hers and the slight bubbling of the pile of slime curled around her ankles. “It’ll be a fucking masterpiece and inspire another fucking cult to drive me up a pus-festering wall. So use small words and give me all the information I need to properly yell at you for the right things.” 

“I work with scientists that like to play god, but are really bad at it,” Syzygy replies, after a moment of silence. The tilt of her mouth makes you wonder if she’s laughing at you. You think she’d dare, out of any other troll you’ve met, and you want to use that to justify your annoyance with her, but you only find it amusing in turn. “They made this little guy,” she goes on, patting a tendril of what’s most decidedly _not_ a little guy, “but couldn’t figure out how to un-make him.” You’re pretty sure she’d rather say kill, instead. You feel another hot stab of unwanted liking at the fact. “He listens to me, though, so I ended up having to keep him. He’s a little bit rash, but mostly harmless.” 

“Mostly,” you deadpan, and then glower a little when the damn pile of slime bubbles inquisitively at you. 

“Mostly,” she goes on, shrugging, “he just puts people to sleep. Helps keep trolls in line, and it’s less expensive than constantly cleaning blood off the walls.” There was another pause. “Is this the part where you yell at me and I get culled for having gotten you swallowed by my slime monstrosity?” 

You consider it. 

For less than a nanosecond. 

“No, this is the part I yell at you for having gotten me swallowed by your goddamn slime monstrosity and I challenge you to round two, without interference,” you sniff disdainfully. “Now give me back my goddamn sickles, I need to kick your goddamn smug ass.” 

Syzygy looks sheepish. 

“Uh, about that.” She scratches her chin, right beneath one of her piercings. “I think they’re gone.” 

“…what do you mean _gone_?” 

You get your ass handed to you, in the end, but you gave it your all and purged most of your anger and screaming in the process. It’s going to be alright, you think. 

  


* * *

  


“You gave Ag my job.” 

Eridan stares down at you with a mixture of irritated affection and dull contempt. 

“For a while,” you say, turning back to your work and ignoring the way his voice is shrill and disbelieving. He’s not fine, and he certainly doesn’t sound like it. “Just until you get back on your feet.” 

“ _You gave Ag my job_ ,” he insists, and then actually reaches out to grab your shoulders and shake you a little. “She’s terrorizing my staff with a fucking semi-sentient slimeball and _you_ gave _Ag_ my _job_!” 

You consider your options carefully. Syzygy warned you about Eridan and derailing – like you needed a warning for that! – and you’ve made careful note to not let him weasel out of his problems by trying to act like he’s solving them when he’s really not. It’s a terribly Eridan thing to do, you know, but you have to admit it’d have never occurred to you to solve it the way Syzygy does. Quite simply, she refuses to give Eridan a chance to derail. She corners him with words and with actions, depriving him of any sort of exit that might let him get away with ignoring the situation at hand. He hasn’t really processed the fact his best friend is dead, and apparently until he does and comes out the other side okay, Syzygy will keep pushing and needling and being quite frankly unbearable. You pity Eridan his friends, and at the same time, you envy the tealblood the aplomb to not bend beneath the weight of Eridan’s complaints. 

Intellectually, you are aware that countless people die every single minute. Death is a part of life, as natural as planets orbiting stars, and just as immutable. People die, it’s a fact of life. But you’ve never really had to deal with it, up close and personal. You know what happens when a troll dies, in theory. How their affairs are sorted by their quadrantmates and how they’re all given some time to grieve and move on and then go right back to living. But you can’t quite fathom the idea of it happening to someone you know. You’re in the unique position that nearly everyone you care about is sure to live very, very long lives. You have lived a remarkably long life, for someone of your blood, as it is. Sollux will endure until the Empire has fallen and rotten and is merely a fairytale written by hopbeasts on Charon’s moon. Gamzee will live to see the end of the universe, or so he claims, and most of the time you’re inclined to believe him, because he’s _Gamzee_ and idea of something or someone being able to put him down seems ludicrous. All your other closest friends and associates are pretty much on the same boat, either due to their blood or Feferi’s gift. You’ll never know loss the way Syzygy and Eridan do, and you’re not quite sure you want to. 

So you don’t know what grieving actually entitles, on its own, and certainly not what Eridan’s personal brand of grieving does. All you have to go on is Syzygy’s certainty that he’s not ready and the realization that your interest in his wellbeing outweighs your annoyance at being shown up by a smarmy tealblood with a pet slime monster and a tendency to stab people with needles when she’s pissed. 

“Yep,” you smile wryly in the face of Eridan’s annoyance, “and she’s keeping it until you’re fine.” 

“I’m _fine_ ,” he whines, letting you go to lean dramatically against your desk. “Why won’t any of you dimwitted lovable idiots _listen_ to me?” 

“Because we love you,” you sigh, and nudge his ankle with your foot. “You panrotten, long-suffering imbecile. Now go away and get your shit together, the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be back at work.” 

“ _Wweh_ ,” Eridan snorts in disgust, and then shuffles away with a sulk. 

Privately, you hope he does get his shit together rather sooner than later. You miss him, and now that Syzygy has taken the time to point out all the tiny things that are off about him, you can’t look at Eridan and pretend he’s anything other but _not_ okay. 

  


* * *

  


bar·gain·ing, **verb** _\ˈbɑrɡənɪŋ\_ A coping mechanism seeking to negotiate a compromise between perceived parties in a conflict. 

  


* * *

  


“There’s stairs for a fucking reason!” Syzygy screeches in a pitch that you swear could shatter glass – it certainly threatens to shatter your hearing clots – throwing her tablet at Eridan’s head after he finishes demonstrating the fine art of falling sixty feet and landing without breaking an ankle or his spine. “A bloody good reason too!” 

He laughs that obnoxious laugh of his, the one you’re pretty sure is purposely fine-tuned to be the most obnoxious. They go down the catwalk at the same brisk, tempestuous pace you’ve come to term ‘admin walk’, and which seems to signal to everyone that reports to them that shit is about to hit the fan if results don’t become apparent immediately. Syzygy keeps up with Eridan’s long stride rather easily, sneering at him and mockingly keeping the tablet out of his reach. You watch them from your perch on a different catwalk, further up, and rest your chin on your folded arms as you sigh. 

Eridan’s latest attempt to prove he’s fine is to do his job regardless of his current lack of rank. He follows Syzygy around all the time and barks orders at admins that cower and feel torn between obeying the orders of their superior or invoking the wrath of the tealblood currently keeping them in line, and the slime monster she lovingly sicced on them at the smallest provocation. Syzygy called bullshit on it, and after long and thoughtful deliberation – and fighting off the shame of admitting you _wanted_ to believe him, if only for have things go back to the same comfortable status quo from before – you’ve agreed with her. 

It hasn’t stopped Eridan from trying, though, and you have to give it to him, he’s tenacious. 

With a small smile no one sees, you think to yourself that he’s always been. 

“You’re being jawdroppingly stupid.” 

You let out a startled swear under your breath as the sudden voice makes you nearly lose your balance and fall off the catwalk. You let out another swear when blue and red crackle around you and keep you from falling face first into the abyss below. You squirm minutely as you’re placed back on solid ground, despite your best intentions not to. You don’t like being manhandled with psionics on your best days, definitely not by trolls you don’t even really talk to much less feel you can call friends. The old man deadeyes you steadily as you sway back into standing properly, finding your balance again. You take a deep breath. Then another. 

“What the actual fuck is wrong with—“ The glorious rant is interrupted by a sharp hit with that cane on your arm. It stings like a motherfucker and completely derails your train of thought. Such a shame, too, it was a glorious rant in the making, you thought you’d be able to go on for a few minutes without stopping. “ _Ow!_ ” 

“ _You_ ,” he enunciates very clearly, with a sort of worn out air that makes you twitch, “are being jawdroppingly _stupid_.” 

“So you say,” you retort, glowering, as you try to stand up tall and fail miserably by virtue of him being taller than you, despite the cane. 

The Helmsman pinches the bridge of his nose with the hand not holding onto his cane, and then smacks you again, on the other arm. 

“Come along, you insufferable brat,” he rolls his eyes at you, and unlike Sollux doesn’t bother to hide the movement behind glasses. 

When it takes you more than a second to obey the pretentious command, you feel a shove from his powers at your back. So you find yourself walking after the old troll with certain trepidation. At least, you’re pretty sure he’s not going to murder you. 

You hope. 

He makes his way through the serpentine maze of corridors and catwalks in the maintenance shafts with an ease you envy a little. You’ve never been too keen on spending time around these parts, if only because it always seems to end up hopelessly lost if you lose track of the entrance. When you emerge through one of the discreet doors disguised as wall paneling, you are surprised to find yourself standing in the corridor in front of Eridan’s respiteblock. The Helmsman opens the door and lets you inside without saying a word. You blink a bit as you find the entire block covered with random bits and pieces of knitting, some of it clearly unfinished and still stuck to the needles. 

"Who do trolls go to, when a friend dies?" The old man asks, as he goes take a seat by the desk, casually propping his cane against his knee. 

You squint a little and shrug. 

"Their moirail," you reply, after a moment, unable to shake off the feeling any answer you give will be deemed wrong on principle. 

"Why?" 

"Because they’re their moirail.” You blink a little. “That’s what moirails _do_. You lie on a pile and have feeling jams." 

"No,” he sighs, leaning back against the chair and giving you an almost pitiful stare, “I mean, why would you go to your moirail to grieve and not your other friends? Perhaps friends who were also friends of the one who died?" 

You’re aware you’re staring. You’re also aware there’s something going on here, something you haven’t really grasped yet but which seems terribly important all of a sudden. 

"What?" 

A test of sorts. 

"Wouldn’t it make more sense?” The look he gives you is almost kind. You’re not sure you like it, because you’ve never known how to handle Captors being kind, when their kindness is irresistibly linked to their cruelty. “To go to the people who are also mourning and share stories about it? To comfort each other with the knowledge that the person you miss meant something to more than just yourself? There is something in that, in grieving, that makes the pain almost bearable. But trolls don’t know how to do that anymore." 

You think of Eridan and Syzygy, of their not-quite-pale closeness and all the fleeting touches that almost seem shooshing, but never quite get there. You scowl. 

"It reeks of pale infidelity." 

"Why?” There’s that kind not quite smile of his again, just a tilt of lips that reminds you more than anything that this troll has quite literally lived long enough to see it all. “Because quadrants have a monopoly on feelings?” He snorts in derision and the romantic in you bristles a little. “Nonsense. Romance and friendship are two different things. You’ve been brainwashed, is all, and you haven’t been alive long enough to know it." 

"I don’t—" 

"Grieving is just another thing _she_ took away from you.” You pale and flinch away, suddenly not too keen to stay and yet unable to make yourself move. You don’t have to ask to know who he’s talking about, and you’re not sure you want to stick around and listen to him snarl about the Condesce. “ To weaken your friendships, to dissolve most of your bonds. Trolls don’t know how to care for their friends anymore, she made sure of it. She taught you to be alone, to care about the bare minimum of people, so that you could go to war without remorse. She outlawed mourning, not with edicts and regulations that would have just made it more attractive to you, but by creating social mores about it.” His smile widens and sharpens, until you imagine one could cut steel with it. “Why don’t you try and help him mourn, Karkat? Why do you expect me to be jealous? She took away our right to grieve and mourn for the dead, to see their corpses as nothing more than carcasses to be discarded, because otherwise trolls might question the idiocy that’s war. She trained us not to care, but that only means it’s part of our nature to care." 

The scary part is how well he’s putting to words all those confused emotions you’ve been wrestling with since you first caught wind of the situation. The need to reach out and try to help, because Eridan means the world to you and you want to make it better, make it stop hurting. And the all-consuming awkwardness because you’re not pale for him, will never be pale for him, and anything that might put your matespritship in jeopardy is unacceptable to even consider. 

"Why are you telling me this?" You ask, soft and quiet and terrified of the answer you might get. 

"Because I won’t get jealous if you try and help my moirail mourn his loss,” he replies, magnanimous and terrifying, as his smile drops from his face so abruptly it almost made a sound, “but I will fucking murder you if you hurt him at all.” 

  


* * *

  


You had not meant for it to go this far. You’d meant only to offer comfort and remind Eridan you’re here and you’re not going anywhere and if he needs you to stay away you will, but if he wants you closer, you will get closer. You’d only wanted to let him know you’re done halfassing shit and tiptoeing around the issue. 

You moan into his mouth, pressing back into the chair as he climbs into your lap, hands holding almost desperately onto your shoulders as he kisses sense out of your mind. 

“I need you so bad,” he hisses, rolling his hips into yours, grinding against the embarrassingly obvious shape of your bulge outlined against your pants. “Holy fuck, Kar—“ 

You pull him down again, fingers in his hair and kiss him until he whines, in the precise pitch that makes your insides twitch with want, because he’s the most pitiful wreck you ever knew and he’s _yours_. Yours to keep, yours to love, yours to hold, yours to protect, yours to trust. When he breaks the kiss, he presses his forehead against yours, panting into your face and staring at you through glassy eyes that look even better with his glasses sitting askew on his nose. 

“Anything you want,” you promise, leaning in to lick the ridiculously pretty shape of his jawline. “Anything you _need_.” 

He makes a low, keening sound of need and buries it into your neck, followed by soft, wanton chirring as you don’t bother to undress him beyond pulling down his pants to his knees. Your fingers find him dripping down all over his thighs and the thought makes your bulge throb in time with your heartbeat because he’s telling you without words, what he wants, what he _needs_ , is you. So you slide your own pants a few crucial inches down your hips, and you know it’s going to be a mess and you don’t _care_. 

Eridan wails low in his throat when your bulge finds his nook and the tip rubs itself all over the rim, almost teasing. He arches back as you start sliding in, spine curved away from you and a hand shoved between his teeth, to try and keep the scream inside his throat. Normally you’d take that as a challenge. Normally you’d tilt him back until his shoulders hit the ground and his refusal to be loud would be your cue to fuck him until he went hoarse. But this isn’t about what you like and what you’re used to, and while you don’t doubt he enjoys it when you treat him rough – hasn’t he taught you all the beautiful ways you can push and pull until he’s at breaking point? – you think this is not the time for that. You reach with your hands and pull him against you, make him curl around you until your head is pressed against his chest and you can hear the hurried drumming of his heartbeat through his clothes. You keep your arms around him, fingers digging into his spine not quite touching the corners of his gills, hidden beneath his binder and his shirt. You fuck him slow and desperate, keeping his hips flushed to yours, and wallowing in the intoxicating feeling of his inner walls clenching and squeezing the length of your bulge with unforgiving insistence. He’s leaking a mess of violet into your groin and you don’t care because you’re leaking just as much cherry red goop all over the seat. 

He slithers bonelessly off you, when he’s done, until his cheek is resting on your thigh and there’s a gross puddle of genetic material all over the chair and around it. Eridan looks up at you, glasses still sitting precariously on the tip of his nose and eyes a little blurry. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, and you think, by his tone, that he doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. 

You hold his face in your hands and tug him up until you can kiss him like he’s the air you breathe. 

“I’m not,” you swear, with the same conviction as any oath, and hold onto him well after he starts trying to swallow back his emotions. 

You let him cry, and you let him fuck you, and then you let him go, when he takes you back to your respiteblock and starts making up excuses to leave. You just smile and remind him he’s welcome here, with you, whenever he might need it. 

The way he looks at you, with wonder and bemusement, makes you think you might be finally getting somewhere with this. 

  


* * *

  


de·pres·sion, **noun** _\ diˈpreSHən\_ A serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless and unimportant, and often is unable to live in a normal way. 

  


* * *

  


When the third week rolls about, you decide something has to give. 

Sollux says nothing, when you make your request, which in itself lets you know he’s perhaps genuinely concerned about your sanity. You clear your agenda for a few days, putting assistants and councilpeople to work, while you sit in your room and review all the information your kismesis provided without a single sardonic quip to go with it. 

You read through thousands of requisition forms and study clips of security camera feeds, trying to piece together a whole life through snippets of surveillance. You watch and read and try to put together Russel Zephyr in your mind. If you figure him out, you’re certain, you’ll be able to actually help Eridan cope. This is something you should have done before, you’re aware, long before Zephyr died. You should have gotten to know him and made friends with him, so you wouldn’t be floundering right now, trying to understand why Eridan is torn the way he is. Your jealousy is unbecoming and dumb, but you refuse to let it get the best of you. You watch the man go about his business like a ghost, quiet and prim and proper, even in the middle of a threesome that makes your head spin a bit. You watch him walk behind Equius with military precision and remain serene in the worst battles. You scrutinize his perfectly matching handwriting, always round and even, without a speck of silliness to it. You watch and watch, but the revelation never comes. 

Russel Zephyr, for all his antics, remains an inscrutable mystery because no matter where you look, there’s nothing truly noteworthy about him. 

There’s not one thing that makes you go aha! and explains the strange spirals of grief surrounding his death. All death is terrible, you know, but you also know the world keeps on turning no matter what. People always move on, people always keep going. And they rarely take this long to do it, in your experience. 

You’re missing a crucial piece of this puzzle, and though you know the place where you might get it, you decide instead to spend a few days repeating the experiment with Syzygy this time, to try and see if her being alive makes it easier to pinpoint what you’re not seeing. You’re certain if it’d been her who died, Eridan would be just as torn, and perhaps Zephyr would be in your ship instead, looking old and venerable and putting the fear of him on everything and everyone. 

That’s part of the solution, you think, a hint of what you need to look for, but you don’t know enough to fit it in the board and in the end, much to your chagrin, you gather aplomb and head over to find some goddamn answers at long last. 

  


* * *

  


“Tell me about Zephyr,” you say, coming to sit across from Syzygy in the mess hall where admins usually have their meals because they’re not all nearly as neurotic as your matesprit and actually take time to sit down and eat instead of gnawing on junk food all damn day long. “What’s… what’s _the deal_ , I guess.” 

Syzygy gives you a long stare, puts down her spoon and snorts. 

“Yeah, how about _no_.” 

You blink at her deadpan, as she shakes her head and then has the gall to pick up her tray and leave the table. You’re not exactly sure if this has ever happened before but you’re quite willing to bet it hasn’t. Syzygy has not gone back to cowering and stuttering around you, and you’re starting to think she never will. It’s not even insubordination, not really. You’ve never given her an actual order and have her disregard it. But when it comes to personal things, she clings to her boundaries in a way that makes you realize _no one else does_. Because trolls are still used to cowering beneath rank. Because you’re used to people fearing you and you’ve learned to use that to your advantage, even if you try not to abuse it. 

Because you’re an _asshole_ and sometimes it takes things like this to remind you of the fact. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, catching up with her as she goes about disposing of the last remnants of her meal. “I’m _sorry_ , okay. I’m shit at this and I know it, but I want to understand. I need to understand to really help, and I kind of really don’t. And it’s fucking frustrating and I’m not trying to pull rank or—“ 

Syzygy’s loud, put upon sigh puts an abrupt end to your hissing plight. 

“C’mon,” she says, throwing a thumb in the direction of the door, “Psii took the big dumb baby for a walk on the observation deck, we can talk in his respiteblock.” 

You’ve gotten over the jealousy mostly on your own. You’re proud of yourself for that. To be fair, you’ve always been good at that, getting your head out of your ass when it was necessary. You follow Syzygy’s brisk steps and admit the thing always annoyed you most about her, before you thought long hard about it and decided to stop being a grub about shit, is that you respect her. She doesn’t quite respect you, though. She’s afraid of you, with that same sane self-preservation instinct all trolls have for their superiors, but she doesn’t respect you, personally, just your rank. Given what you’ve seen of her, in the past week or so, the main obstacle in getting past your petty emotions was admitting it annoyed you to realize she seemed to respect everyone else just fine. 

“You want to know about Zephyr,” she says, once the door is closed behind you, and she’s rummaging through one of Eridan’s cabinets like she owns it, “because you don’t understand why he mattered that much to Eridan. You want to know about him because you think that’ll make you understand.” 

“I know I’ve been shitty about this!” You snarl, a bit defensively, and that feeling, of being young and dumb and about to be disciplined by your betters returns with a vengeance as she picks out a bottle of booze and starts serving two glasses. “Okay! I get it! You’re pissed at me because I’m a shitty matesprit, but I’m trying to fix it!” 

“I’m not _pissed_ at you,” Syzygy sneers a little, behind her glass. “I’m pissed at what you are and what it means for my best friend. You happen to be a fairly decent sort of person, which only makes it fucking worse.” 

You blink, somewhat owlishly, and slowly come over to sit on a chair, taking the offered glass. 

“…okay?” 

“You’re a great Chancellor, you know,” she goes on, carefully not looking at you at all. “You’ve done great things for the Empire. Fuck, I probably wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for some of the stuff you’ve pushed and made into law.” She smiles a little wryly. “But the problem of someone like you, who’s so great at handling great things, is that you’re pretty fucking terrible at managing the really small things.” She arches an eyebrow at you, and goes on when you can’t quite make your throat work the way it’s supposed to. “What do you want me to tell you about Russel? That he was great and kind and magnanimous? He wasn’t. He was petty and self-centered and manipulative and a fucking _sadist_. Knowing about him won’t make you understand why Eridan is mourning this hard, because you’re used to thinking about things in the great scale of things. To you things matter because they’re worth it, but the thing about being lowly and small like us is that we know we’re worthless in the eyes of the great people above us. We’re replaceable and dispensable. There’s million others like us out there. Russel Zephyr wasn’t a great man. He was a midblood like any other. He wasn’t remarkable by himself, he was remarkable by who cared about him. That’s the only thing us lowly, worthless small people have. We know we’re never going to amount to anything in the big picture, so we try to make our connections to others matter. The people who’ll care when we’re gone, they’re the ones who really make us worth it.” She narrowed her eyes a little. “I’m pissed at what you are, because you’re a fucking _mutant_.” You flinch, before you can help yourself. “You know this, even if you’re the highest of the high, now, even if your greatness is sung all across the galaxy, you’re a _mutant_. I don’t know what it was like, growing up a mutant under Her Imperious Condescension’s laws, but I do know you were alive at the time being what you are was considered the lowest of the low. I’m pissed at you, because being what you are, you still managed to _forget_ how it felt.” She takes another sip of her drink. “I don’t want to die. I’ve seen lots of people die in terrible ways. I’ve killed some myself. I’m pretty low, as far as hierarchies go, so I’ve also seen the holes those people leave behind. The people who suffer and miss them when they’re gone. I don’t want to die, but there’s so few people left to mourn me when I’m gone that I’m willing to burst your bubble and stand up to you, because there’s literally nothing left for me to lose. So tell me, Chancellor Vantas, sir, is pissing you off and making you angry a crime comparable to treason? Because I intent on doing that until you fucking remember what’s it like, from the worm’s eye view. I like Eridan too much not to.” 

You run. 

You run and run and don’t stop until you’re back on your office, all the way across the ship. 

  


* * *

  


ac·cept·ance, **noun** _\akˈseptəns\_ Coming to terms with one’s personal limitations and putting an end to a struggle that hinges on circumstances beyond one’s control. 

  


* * *

  


“Oh.” 

You blink up at the tall – _really_ tall, taller than Eridan, and that’s saying something – yellowblood standing about in the corridor with a perplexed look on her face. She recognizes you and bows deeply as per protocol, and you feel something shapeless and angry coiling in your gut as you recognize the glimmer of metal grafted into the back of her neck. A helmsman, then. You don’t often see them on this side of the ship, though admittedly, you don’t know any of them personally so perhaps they do hang around the high end quarters and you just never noticed. After Syzygy laid down the law, you’ve began to realize there are millions of tiny things you never actually noticed at all. You still haven’t figured out how you feel about it, except you want to never feel like this ever again. 

“What are you doing here?” You ask, trying to make the question not sound like a demand, and feel slightly frustrated when the helmsman bows a little lower and refuses to raise her head. 

“I’m looking for Head Admin Ampora, sir, I’m sorry, I got lost,” she looks at you from behind her eyelashes, but doesn’t unbend her spine and it _annoys_ you. The rest of her words obliterate your feelings, though. “Admin Zephyr sent me.” 

“Admin Zephyr is dead,” you deadpan, staring at her through narrowed eyes. 

Though admittedly, the _Morrigan_ is currently docked against the _Leviathan_ , under the pretense of swapping supplies and warships. You hadn’t given it much thought until now, but you’re angry at yourself for even considering Zephyr’s death had anything to do with that. It’s more of the same thing Syzygy accused you of, trying to see greatness in everything, to justify your lack of understanding. You’re pissed at yourself, probably more than she will ever be at you. You wonder if Eridan is with Equius now. He might be. Maybe Equius will know how to taunt the grief out of Eridan, and maybe it’ll work better than your attempts at kindness did. 

“He is, sir,” she goes on, shrugging a little. “Before he died, though, he… asked me to find Admin Ampora, next time we came across the _Leviathan_ , and deliver a letter. He was very insistent I should deliver this in person.” 

“You can stop bowing, you know,” you say after a moment, considering your options. The helmsman blinks a bit and slowly, somewhat reluctantly, stands up to full height again. She’s statuesque to say the least, but the way she’s holding her hands in front of her makes her seem docile, rather than threatening. “What’s your name?” 

“Ximena Freydn, sir,” she bows a little, again, hair rustling, “auxiliary artillery helmsmen of the Imperial Battle Cruiser Class F, _Morrigan_.” 

You consider asking her to give you the letter and delivering it yourself. You step on the thought as soon as it takes form. It’s not your place, and you’re more keenly aware of it now than ever. It could have been your place, once, if you hadn’t been a child about everything, but it’s too late now and you have no one to blame but yourself. 

“Third door down the left,” you say, with a little shrug. “Do knock first, he might not be in the best of moods.” 

Helmsman Freydn bows gratefully and excuses herself with a relieved smile. You decide to hunt down Equius and find out how up to date he is on the situation. It’s what quadrantcorners are supposed to do, after all, support each other when their shared quadrantmate is in trouble. 

It is also, as the Helmsman would put it, what friends are supposed to do. 

  


* * *

  


“First of all,” Eridan intones, with a mock deadpan that you suppose is meant to emulate the sound of Zephyr’s voice, “get the fuck over it, all of you. Get over it and let me rest in peace or I will come back and haunt your dumbfuck asses for it. That means you Eridan.” 

He pauses to snort, shaking his head at the paper in his hand, before going back to read. 

“And you too, Agness. Stop trying to run his ship. If you’re really that bored and desperate for disaster, go run my ship. God knows they could do worse than an actually competent admin for a change. Someone give Captain Zahhak a towel, please.” Helmsman Freydn complies with the order, which very clearly didn’t come from Eridan but from the letter itself. “And for the love of god, stop antagonizing the Chancellor, he doesn’t deserve it.” 

Syzygy scoffs a little, and you feel your cheeks burn red with embarrassment. 

“Tallie, Lydell,” the bluebloods shifted uncomfortably, unconsciously standing up to attention, “let it rest. Move on. Together or apart, I don’t care which one makes you happy so long as it doesn’t end with you two idiots murdering each other. I will be **pissed** ,” Eridan paused to look at said bluebloods with a risen eyebrow, “that’s underlined and bolded, for the record,” they flinch dutifully as he goes back to reading. “I will be **pissed** if you two assholes end up here over a spat gone wrong. I didn’t spend the last decade of my life sorting out your shit for nothing.” 

“Get over it, move on. I lived a good life, and a great part of it is due to the people listening to this. I leave behind a good deal of pending issues that need to be addressed, and I hope you will get to them when the time is right. Now drink in my steed and stop being dumb, all of you. Cheers.” 

You’ve never been in a will reading before, though you’ve watched plenty of movies about it before. All of them were supposed to be grim and solemn and the wills were long and tedious. You’re a bit out of your depth as glasses are passed around, and people toast with a strange sort of merriment to the dead troll whose scathing words Eridan read. You feel a bit better when Eridan pulls you into his lap, one arm comfortably put around your waist. They drink and joke and you think you see even Equius crack a small, fragile smile when helmsman Freydn serves him a glass. 

Eridan and Syzygy are certainly cheerful, clinking their glasses together and relaxing into each other without fuss. You can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, but the stifling pressure pushing on Eridan’s spine seems to be gone now. 

“Starting to get it, are you,” says the other Helmsman, sitting at your right with a smug, knowing smile. 

“Not entirely,” you admit, and then take the glass he offers a bit dumbly, “but maybe just a little.” 

“Good enough,” he says, toasting absently along one of the blueblood’s strangled words. “The trick is getting comfortable,” he adds, with the air of someone bestowing great wisdom upon a friend, “so when you realize the spiral downwards never ends, it’s not quite as traumatic.” 

“Spiraling down forever, huh,” you muse, and perhaps is the alcohol – it tastes like gasoline going down and hits you in the teeth with every sip, but that’s what everyone’s drinking and you’re dumb enough to wonder if it’s traditional or something – or perhaps is Eridan’s hand entwined with yours even as he snarks at someone else or perhaps it’s Syzygy smiling wryly at you as she keeps your glass full, but you find yourself smiling too. “Somehow it’s not as scary a prospect as you’d fucking think.” 

Later, much later, you’ll decide this was the moment you stopped being a man who did great things, and began working on becoming someone who was truly grand, in all the ways that actually matter. 

  


* * *

  


_Reflected in the mirror is the repeated ideal._  
 _The creeping ivy overlapping itself many times._  
 _While I was searching for my “true self,”_  
 _The feelings come spiraling down._  
 _From now_  
 _And on,_  
 _We will remove all of these labels._  
 _We will remove all these labels._

~ Hatsune Miku, “Nothing.” 

**Author's Note:**

> [Askblog for this verse.](http://requisitionforms.tumblr.com/)


End file.
